Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization Hands-on

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We try and colonize the New World in this Sid Meier remake.

By Jason Ocampo

In the year 1492, a small band of Dutch settlers arrived in the New World, settled upon a small island, and made friend with the neighboring Native American tribes. However, the colony expanded too quickly, outstripping its food supply, and thus spent a lot of gold importing food from Europe. With the situation bleak, I restarted Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization and tried again. At this point, Sid Meier needs very little introduction to PC gamers. Colonization is a remake of a 1994 game about the settling of the New World, and this new game is built on the Civilization IV engine. (See our recent primer for more information.) I've had a chance to play a few games over the past week for this report.

Like Civilization, Colonization is a strategy game with plenty of depth and replayability. There are four playable factions (English, Spanish, Dutch, and French), each with two leaders that you can select from. The most recognizable example is the English faction, which lets you choose between George Washington and John Adams. Each leader confers two gameplay bonuses. The first is a national bonus applicable to either leader. For example, Washington and Adams are both tolerant, which means that that you better attract immigrants wanting to flee the oppression of Europe for your shores. The second bonus is individual; Washington offers better discipline, meaning that he can raise armies with less gear than other leaders, while Adams is a libertarian, which means a bonus in liberty in all settlements.

(If you must know, the Dutch leaders are Peter Stuyvesant and Adriaen Van Der Donck; the French leaders are Samuel de Champlain and Louis de Frontenac; and the Spanish leaders are Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin.)

The main campaign is played out on procedurally-generated maps, so no two games will be exactly the same. In the build that I played, there are two map types. The New World map creates a landmass that stretches from pole-to-pole, much like North and South America. The Caribbean map eschews the big land mass and goes for large islands. As far as I can tell, the New World map makes for easy hostilities, since colonies are all essentially connected. The Caribbean map slows down exploration and warfare, since you have to transport units across water. You can adjust the map size; the larger the map, the longer the games play out, and you can tweak the game speed and the difficulty, with seven different AI levels to choose from.

From the very beginning you will make key decisions that can effect the course of your game. When establishing that first settlement, you need to take into account nearby resources and proximity to Native American tribes. Then there's the build order, of what sort of buildings and units to construct. Do you go for bracing your economy, beefing up your defenses, or building new units?

An interesting dynamic is also one of trade; you have a ship or ships hauling goods back and forth between the Old and New World. You basically need to constantly have the ship shuttle back and forth, otherwise you're playing inefficiently. There's not a lot of warehouse room in your colonies, and once you fill them up you start to lose goods. Hauling them across the ocean lets you clear out your warehouse for more goods and resources while also letting you sell them for cold hard cash. You can use this cash to pay taxes and appease your monarch when he comes demanding money (refuse and you can anger him, as well as lose the ability to sell certain goods overseas). But you'll also burn a lot of cash buying things; tools are required to finish buildings, horses are needed to create stables, food to import if you're running low. And then there are immigrants. Over time, immigrants of all stripes, from indentured servants to prisoners, become available; however, you can hurry the process by basically buying the services of specialists, such as mining experts. You also need to create or import goods to trade with foreign colonies and the natives. One tribe might be willing to trade cotton for guns, for example.

Where do you want to build today?

At the same time, there's a considerable amount of management required for your colony. As you add settlers and workers, you can assign them to different tasks. It's possible that you have a shortage of workers, which means that you need to decide what you'd rather want more. For example, do you want to turn tobacco to cigars, or do you focus more on turning raw ore into tools and guns? You also want to expand your presence with additional colonies, as well as develop the land with pioneers, Colonization's version of engineers. These can build roads as well as develop the land; turning grassland to farms, building mines atop hills, and so on.

We haven't even gotten to when relations turn ugly and it's time for war, but judging from the build trees there's quite a bit to naval and land combat. Privateers, frigates, infantry, cavalry, and scouts are just some of the military units at your command, provided you can produce them.

Like many Sid Meier games, Colonization appears to combine deep gameplay with frequent rewards. You're always a turn or two from finishing a project or hitting another milestone, which compels you to keep playing. That's a good sign for the finished product. Of course, the original design was already proven more than a decade ago. Colonization ships later this year.